A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
